Banking
How top CBN, Zenith, Skye and Firstbank staff defrauded Nigeria
ABUJA-TOP officials of the Nigeria Central Bank, CBN, colluded with officials of private banks to defraud the country of about N8 billion, an anti-graft agency has said.
The EFCC said on Sunday that it is ready to prosecute Patience Okoro Eye, Afolabi Olufemi, Kolawole Babalola, Olaniran Muniru Adeola, Fatai Yusuf Adekunle, and Ilori Adekunle Sunday, all top officials of the Central Bank from various states, after concluding its investigations.
Officials of private banks who colluded with the Central Bank officials will also be prosecuted, the EFCC spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, said in a statement.
The scam involved the “theft and recirculation of defaced and mutilated currencies,” the anti-graft agency stated.The officials are set to be arraigned on Tuesday.
Read the full statement below:
EFCC To Arraign Six CBN Big Wigs,16 Others for N8billion Currency Fraud June 2
The Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC has concluded arrangement to arraign in court, five top executives of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, implicated in a mega scam involving the theft and recirculation of defaced and mutilated currencies.
The suspects drawn from various business units of the apex bank are to be docked by the anti-graft agency before a Federal High Court sitting in Ibadan, Oyo State, from Tuesday June 2, 2015 to Thursday June 4, 2015.
They include Patience Okoro Eye( Abuja) , Afolabi Olufemi( Lagos), Kolawole Babalola (Ibadan), Olaniran Muniru Adeola (Ibadan), Fatai Yusuf, Adekunle (Head, Security, CBN, (Ibadan) and Ilori Adekunle Sunday,(Akure).
The remaining sixteen suspects are drawn from various commercial banks who were found to have conspired with the CBN executives to swing the heist.
All the suspects who are currently in the custody of the EFCC are now ruing the day they literally allowed greed and craze for materialism to be loud their sense of judgement and responsibility, when they elected to help themselves to tones of defaced Naira notes. Instead of carrying out the statutory instruction to destroy the currency, they substituted it with newspapers neatly cut to Naira sizes and proceeded to recycle the defaced and mutilated currency.
The fraud is partly to blame for the failure of government monetary policy over the years as currency mop up exercises by the apex bank failed to check the inflationary pressure on the economy.
The lid on the scam which is widely suspected to have gone on unchecked for years, was blown on November 3, 2014 via a petition to the EFCC alleging that over N6, 575, 549, 370.00( Six Billion, Five Hundred and Seventy-Five Million, Five-Hundred and Forty-Nine Thousand, Three Hundred and Seventy Naira) was cornered and discreetly recycled by light fingered top executives of the CBN at the Ibadan branch.
The suspects, who were members of the Briquetting Panel, plotted their way to infamy on September 8, 2014, while carrying out a Briquetting exercise at the CBN Branch, Ibadan.
In banking parlance, Briquetting is disintegration and destruction of counted and audited dirty notes. By this practice, depositor banks usually take mutilated notes to the CBN in exchange for fresh notes equivalent of the amount deposited.
Naira
The depositor banks in this instance are Zenith Bank, FCMB, Wema Bank, Access Bank, First Bank, Skye Bank, Ecobank and Sterling Bank.
But while carrying out the assignment, the team were alleged to have found one of the currency boxes filled only with old newspapers rather than 20 bundles of N1000 notes.
A similar case, according to investigation, had been discovered on September 22, 2014 when a box that was supposed to contain N500 notes to the tune of N5billion was filled with old newspapers.
Unlike in the past, this fraud could not be swept under the carpet, as a member of the Briquetting Panel from the Osogbo branch blew the lid on the illicit deal. In a statement, the informant stated that the exercise was designed to last between August 4 and 8, 2014.
The 35-year-old, however, stated that she discovered a strange ‘sight’ while opening the third box on the second day of the exercise. It was a discovery that beat her ken.
She added that she confronted the other members of the panel, including Eye, Head, Briquetting Panel; Treasury Assistant; Coordinator and Head, Security, CBN, Ibadan, who all assured her that they would look into it. But she later found out that it was all a ruse. She said she later found out that Eye not only maintained sealed lips over the matter but omitted it from her report.
A five-count charge awaits the suspects as they
Plans are in top gear for the 11th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the FBN Holdings Plc.
The management made this disclosure in a notice it filed with the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) on Thursday, where it averred that it has not been served with any court order against the proposed AGM.
According to notice, which was signed by the acting Company Secretary, Adewale Arogundade, FBN Holding said, “The attention of FBN Holdings Plc (the Company) has been drawn to recent media reports purporting that the Company has received a Court Order stopping it from holding the Annual General Meeting (AGM) scheduled for August 15, 2023.
“We confirm that this assertion is a false narrative as the Company has, as at the date hereof, not been served with any court order to stop the forthcoming AGM.
“Suffice to mention that the AGM is a statutory meeting of Shareholders that must be held in accordance with the law, further to which the Company will notify the regulators and the public as appropriate if there is any lawful order to restrain the Company from conducting same.
“We hereby assure our esteemed Shareholders that the AGM shall hold on August 15, 2023, as planned and we look forward to their attendance and active participation at the meeting.”
However, court orders published in national dailies showed that the Federal High Court in Lagos had issued an order against the financial institution, barring it from holding its 11th AGM.
The order was entered pursuant to a petition by Olusegun Onagoruwa, in suit No: FHC/L/CP/1271/2022. It was addressed to the bank and some other bank officials.
It read, “Take notice that unless you obey the directives in the judicial order contained in the order made on July 15, 2022, by the Federal High Court, Lagos, by refraining from proceeding with the 11th Annual General Meeting of FBN Holdings Limited proposed for August 15, 2023, from seeking approval to issue or raise share capital in any manner whatsoever, from appointing or confirming the appointment of new directors, or in any other manner taking any step towards implementing, actualising enforcing resolution of the 10th Annual General Meeting of FBN Holdings Plc held on June 20, 2022, or in any other manner overreaching, disobeying or undermining the said order of a court, you will be guilty of contempt of court and you will be liable to be committed to prison and to there imprisoned.”
Biztellers brought you a report that a segment of shareholders had staged a protest at the headquarters of the bank on Monday, calling for the AGM to be held, as well as soliciting regulatory interventions.
It is expected that at the AGM, FHN Holdings is poised to breathe life into plans to seek shareholders’ approval to raise N150bn fresh capital via a rights issue and elect new directors including billionaire, Femi Otedola and Samson Ariyibi among other resolutions.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has refuted claims of devaluing the.
Earlier reports suggested that the CBN had devalued the Naira, lowering its exchange rate from N631 to the dollar, compared to the previous day’s rate of N461.60 at the Importers and Exporters (I&E) window.
However, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) released a statement on Thursday through its Acting Head of Corporate Communications, Dr. Isa Abdulmumin, categorizing the report as false information.
In the statement titled ‘CBN Has Not Devalued The Naira’, he said the attention of the apex bank was drawn to the news report by an Abuja based newspaper edition of June 1, 2023, titled “CB Devalues Naira To 630/51”.
However, the CBN stated categorically that the news report was replete with outright FALSEHOODS and destabilizing innuendos, ‘reflecting potentially willful ignorance of the said medium as to the workings of the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market.’
“For the avoidance of doubt, the exchange rate at the Investors’ & Exporters (I&E) window traded this morning (June 1, 2023) at N465/USS1 and has been stable around this rate for a while.
“The public is hereby advised to ignore the news report by Daily Trust in its entirety, as it is speculative and calculated at causing panic in the market,” the CBN spokesman added.
He, therefore, advised media practitioners to verify their facts from the Central Bank of Nigeria before publishing in order not to misinform the public.
Biztellers had earlier reported that 139 micro financial institutions, made up of 132 microfinance banks, four primary mortgage banks, and three finance companies fell under the sledgehammer of regulatory authorities with their operating licenses withdrawn.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) made public the revocation in the official gazette of the Federal Government published on the apex bank’s website on Tuesday.
We now avail you of the names of the affected micro financial institutions, so that you can check if the one you have been doing business with is affected.
Governor, CBN, Godwin Emefiele, explained that the licenses were revoked in the exercise of the powers conferred on the apex bank under Section 12 of BOFIA 2020, Act No. 5.
Biztellers shares below the full list of the affected Microfinance Banks, finance companies and primary mortgage institutions:
S/No. Name Of Institution
1. ATLAS MICROFINANCE BANK
2. BLUEWHALES MICROFINANCE BANK
3. EVEREST MICROFINANCE BANK
4. IGANGAN MICROFINANCE BANK
5. MAINSAIL MICROFINANCE BANK
6. MERIT MICROFINANCE BANK
7. MINNA MICROFINANCE BANK
8. MUSHARAKA MICROFINANCE BANK
9. NOPOV MICROFINANCE BANK
10. OHON MICROFINANCE BANK
11. PREMIUM MICROFINANCE BANK
12. ROYAL MICROFINANCE BANK
13. STATESMAN MICROFINANCE BANK
14. SUISSE MICROFINANCE BANK
15. VIBRANT MICROFINANCE BANK
16. VIRTUE MICROFINANCE BANK
17. ZAMARE MICROFINANCE BANK
18. NORTH CAPITAL MICROFINANCE BANK
19. CHIDERA MICROFINANCE BANK
20. EXCELLENT MICROFINANCE BANK
21. NI’IMA MICROFINANCE BANK
22. COSMOPOLITAN MICROFINANCE BANK
23. PROGRESSIVE LINK MICROFINANCE BANK
24. TRUST ONE (FOMERLY DESMONARCHY)
25. EKUOMBE MICROFINANCE BANK
26. FIRST INDEX MICROFINANCE BANK
27. OLA MICROFINANCE BANK
28. ULI MICROFINANCE BANK
29. VERDANT MICROFINANCE BANK
30. AGULERI MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
31. APEKS MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
32. FAHIMTA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
33. MANNY MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
34. REALITY MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
35. SURBPOLITAN MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
36. ONYX MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
37. OSINA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
38. OLOFIN-OWENA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
39. ZIKADO MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
40. PRUDENTIAL CO-OPERATIVE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
41. PENIEL MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
42. TARABA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
43. BRASS MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
44. MICHIKA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
45. NDIAGU MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
46. NORTHBRIDGE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
47. FCT MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
48. OMU-ARAN MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
49. CHERISH MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
50. BIPC MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
51. DANELS GLOBAL MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
52. BANCORP MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
53. MANNA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
54. MONEYWISE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
55. MERCURY MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
56. NEW AGE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
57. PEARL MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
58. ZAWADI MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
59. SEED CAPITAL MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
60. EDUEK MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
61. EKSU MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
62. DAKINGARI MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
63. OGOJA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
64. NWABOSI MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
65. NUTURE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
66. ACTIVE POINT MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
67. AMOYE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
68. BOLUWADURO MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
69. IYEDE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
70. MAYFAIR MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
71. CALABAR MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
72. IGHOMO MICROFINANCE BANK LIMTED
73. HACKMAN MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
74. IDESE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
75. BRIDGEWAY MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
76. GRASSROOT MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
77. SURELIFE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
78. TIJARAH MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
79. IC-GLOBAL MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
80. EJIAMATU MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
81. BRIYTH COVENANT MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
82. NANKA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
83. CUB MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
84. BFL MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
85. UMUNNE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
86. OROKE MICROFINANCE BANK
87. ALKALERI MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
88. CROWNED EAGLE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
89. UNIFA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
90. DADINKOWA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
91. IFESOWAPO MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
92. OAF MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
93. BAMA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
94. NGALA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
95. IWOAMA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
96. KADA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
97. KEFFI MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
98. NUT-ENDWELL MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
99. FIRST MULTIPLE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
100. SBDC MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
101. OROS CAPITAL MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
102. OZIZZA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
103. PRIMERA CREDIT MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
104. IFEANYICHUKWU MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
105. IHIOMA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
106. JOSAD MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
107. AKPO MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
108. AIYEPE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
109. ABC MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
110. STAR MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
111. PURPLE MONEY MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
112. UTUH MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
113. STALLION MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
114. KJL MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
115. CREDIT AFRIQUE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
116. COWRIES MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
117. LAWEBOD MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
118. MABINAS MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
119. BUSINESS SUPPORT MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
120. OGBE-AHIARA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
121. OLOFIN MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
122. OBOSI MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
123. FIYINFOLU MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
124. BISHOPGATE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
125. AWKA MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
126. ZIGATE MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
127. ESAN MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
128. ENUGU-UKWU MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
129. ECHO MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
130. ALLY MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
131. NETWORK MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
132. AWGBU MICROFINANCE BANK LIMITED
SCHEDULE II
LIST OF FINANCE COMPANIES LICENCES REVOKED
S/No. Name Of Institution
1. HHL Invest & Trust Limited
2. TFS Finance Limited
3. Treasures & Trust Limited
SCHEDULE III
LIST OF PRIMARY MORTGAGE BANKS LICENCES REVOKED
S/No. Name Of Institution
1. RESORT SAVINGS & LOANS
2. SAFETRUST MORTGAGE BANK
3. ADAMAWA SAVINGS & LOANS
4. KOGI SAVINGS & LOANS
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